Seven $24,000 Grassroots divisions will go postward at Hanover Raceway on Saturday night, and local filly Sauble Claire will be hoping to get a call
from guest announcer Ken Warkentin in the third two-year-old pacing filly skirmish.
“She’s a nice little filly and I just hope for the best for her,” says owner and breeder Larry Hall of Tara. “I wish her good luck, and I think she’ll be all right.”
Sauble Claire will make her third Grassroots start from Post 5 in the third division on Saturday, and will be looking to add to the 75 points she earned with a track record setting 1:57.2 victory at Clinton Raceway on Aug. 21 and a runner-up finish at Georgian Downs on Aug. 13. That tally has the filly in a four-way tie for seventh in the division standings with two events remaining on the Grassroots calendar.
Prior to joining the Grassroots circuit, Sauble Claire tried her hand against the Gold Series fillies, finishing third in the season opening Gold Elimination round at Flamboro Downs on June 26 and sixth in the July 3 Gold Final, and then second in her July 11 elimination at Mohawk Racetrack and tenth in the final. The daughter of L H Stryker and Noble Duchess made her next start in a Battle of the Belles Elimination at Grand River Raceway on July 25, finishing fourth and then coming back the next week to capture the consolation with a 1:57.1 clocking.
That 1:57.1 mile matched Sauble Claire’s personal best, recorded in her first lifetime start at Hanover Raceway on June 18.
“That’s home,” says Hall of the Hanover Raceway oval. “She’s been good since Day 1.”
Had things gone differently last weekend, Hall could have been watching the filly race for someone else on Saturday. The owner-breeder entered Sauble Claire in the Aug. 28 Summer Sizzler Sale, but bidding did not reach the reserve Hall had placed on the youngster, so he shipped her home for trainer Otis Hall to ready for Saturday’s Grassroots contest.
“I had a price on her and I didn’t get it, so we brought her home,” he explains. “She’s just a nice little thing.”
Ayr resident Otis Hall will hand the lines over to regular reinsman Trevor Henry of Arthur for Saturday’s test. The pair face a field of Grassroots veterans in the sixth race, including the division co-leader Eat Me Up, who will make her bid for a fourth straight victory from Post 6. Her co-leader Your Beautiful is absent from Saturday’s contest, leaving the door open for some of the fillies sitting below the leaders, and Hall would be delighted if Sauble Claire rewarded his decision to keep her with a move up the standings.
The two-year-old pacing filly Grassroots action gets under way in the fourth race and continues through Race 10 on the 14 race program, which gets underway at 6:45 p.m.
The Meadowlands Racetrack’s Ken Warkentin will take time for a meet-and-greet and autograph session with Hanover Raceway fans in addition to calling races and assisting with the track’s season ending awards presentations. Fans will also have another opportunity to qualify for the Ontario Sires Stakes program’s Win The Thrill contest.
In the designated Win The Thrill race finalists will be drawn from each horse’s ballot box, earning a Hanover Raceway betting voucher and a shot at the Oct. 1 Grand Prize draw for a share in the Standardbred Breeders of Ontario Association’s (SBOA) New Owner Mentoring Program. The Grand Prize winner will join eight other newcomers to Standardbred ownership, learning the ropes from longtime owner Brian Webster and trainer Tony O’Sullivan as they purchase and prepare an Ontario-sired yearling in hopes of competing in next year’s OSS events.
More information about the Win The Thrill contest and the SBOA New Owners Mentoring program is available at www.ontariosiresstakes.com and www.standardbredbreeders.com. Ballots and details are available in the official Hanover Raceway program.
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To view entries for Saturday's card of harness racing, click the following link: Saturday Entries – Hanover Raceway.